


The Farmboy and the Heroine

by Redskybluecherry



Category: Fable (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, One Shot, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 10:06:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19827904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redskybluecherry/pseuds/Redskybluecherry
Summary: She had always thought of herself as a loner by default.Until he'd come along.A canon-compliant one shot, telling the story of Whisper and the Hero of Oakvale - from her point of view.





	The Farmboy and the Heroine

**Author's Note:**

> "Keep the ones who heard you when you never said a word." - Unknown

There were no tears as she left. Whisper had sworn herself she wouldn’t ever shed a tear again, not after she and her brother had gotten stranded on the shores of this strange land which had subsequently become her home. And she had kept her promise, with one exception, from the moment they had left their wrecked ship behind up until now. This time, she was standing on a different ship. This time, she was leaving Albion behind instead of arriving. As the houses became smaller, the contours of the harbour started to diffuse up to the point of being undistinguishable from the nature surrounding the town. She remembered.

Back then, she had been so young, barely able to comprehend what had happened and how it would affect her life. Her brother had always been so confident, over-confident almost: As soon as the Guildmaster had offered to take them in, he hadn’t hesitated or questioned the old man’s intentions in the slightest. He had always believed himself worthy of a bigger future, while Whisper had always questioned everything that had been handed to her, not quite believing she’d deserved it.

_Thunder_. One of the great heroes of Albion, and the reason for her ambition in life. Ever since they had lost their parents, Thunder had led her on the path she had walked on up until now, had made sure she was to follow in his footsteps. Whether she wanted to or not wasn’t important to him, or at least he had never concerned himself with it. To be fair, back when they had been taken in by the Guild, s _he_ hadn’t even had an idea what she had wanted to do or who she had wanted to become. So she had done what had been expected of her – she’d trained harder than everyone else, to become better than everyone else. To the other kids, she had been strange, foreign, distant. Even though she hadn’t ever let them notice, she’d heard the way they had mocked her and talked about her behind her back. So she had done what she thought was best – instead of wanting to fit in, she had deliberately stood out. When the other novices had been having fun after training was over, she had stayed and practiced. When everyone else had been asleep, she had been in the library, studying. And soon, her efforts had paid off: She had solidified herself as an outsider, but not an outsider to make fun of - someone to look up to, someone to fear.

For a while, Whisper had convinced herself she had been happy like this. But then he had come. He, the Hero of Oakvale. The greatest Hero of Albion, now.  
Whisper smiled.  
_Well played farmboy, well played._  
She had tried to hate him, to despise him, but as soon as she had seen the scared look on his face, like a kitten separated from the rest of the litter, she’d known she couldn’t.  
He too, had been thrown into this new world without any notion of what was to come.  
But she’d never known how to make friends – Thunder hadn’t deemed something so _unimportant_ worth teaching her.

  
So she had teased him, had refused to call him by his name, only referring to him as f _armboy_ instead.  
There were times when he had made it easy for her to be mean – when he had surpassed her in skill, when she’d seen the looks Maze and the Guildmaster had been giving him, when her own brother had degraded her in front of him.  
  
Weakness was never something she had allowed herself to feel.  
But in his presence, she had felt weak, everytime. Not just because he had been superior, but mostly because he’d never rubbed it in. Not once.  
Everytime he had beaten her, whether it had been back in the Guild, during their hunt for Hobbes on the farm, or in the Arena, in front of hundreds of people:  
He had always treated her with respect, had never given her the impression he hadn’t seen her as his equal.  
When he had refused to kill her in the Arena, renouncing the Prize money without hesitation, she hadn’t even been able to thank him properly, because she had felt so weak.  
Weak, because he had been showing her something she hadn’t been able to give. Something she hadn’t known existed.  
Kindness, without any ulterior motive or agenda.

  
It had angered her at first, she’d thought he’d mocked her.  
But after she had spent days and nights thinking about it, she had realized – he was a friend.  
He had _wanted_ to be her friend, even though she’d treated him like her nemesis for so many years.  
She had cried then, happiness and sadness mixing into one strange feeling – the realization she had finally found something she’d unkowingly been looking for her whole life.  
Somehwere inside her heart, she had felt anger, too. Anger at herself for letting pride keep her from accepting the gift of his friendship for all these years.  
Anger at her brother, who’d shaped her into a person she’d finally realized she no longer wanted to be.  
After her tears had dried, she had made the decision to leave Albion.

  
The wind was blowing through her air as she turned her back on the country which had been her home for most of her life.  
_I’m glad I got to say goodbye._  
Whisper should’ve known he would find her before she left, the news of him defeating Jack of Blades had travelled all across Albion, and so had the news of her departure.  
To her, it seemed fitting, bidding him farwell in his hometown.  
No matter how many monsters and bandits she’d slain over the years, how many battles she’d fought, how many quests she’d completed:  
To her, nothing had felt as satisfying as finally acknowledging him as a friend.  
They hadn’t made any promises of keeping in touch, but somehow, Whisper knew she’d hear from him in some form or another.

  
  
All her life, she’d aspired to be what others had expected of her.  
And when she had least expected it, he had shown her what she had truly needed.

  
Whisper looked into the sky and closed her eyes. She could hear the sailors laughing and shouting, the seagulls over her head, the waves surrounding the ship.  
Now, it was time for her to be who _she_ wanted to be.  
Her own hero.


End file.
